Search: Digital Future

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Here is the latest infographic out from Flowtown, this time on how Adults are using mobile phones, and with it, comes a few interesting stats to take notice of… Like the 90% of 18-29 year olds that sleep with their mobile phone, this is a stat that doesn’t mean too much directly, but helps establish the connection between a person and their phone as a very powerful tool for marketers come day light hours! You’ll also notice that 18% of 18-24 year olds send over 200 text messages per day.

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Sad Keanu is the latest Internet meme. It all started with a paparazzi picture of Keanu Reeves sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich and is now starting to take the Internet by storm! As you can see from the many creative interpretations, it takes a lot to cheer up Sad Keanu...

Email, Facebook, and Twitter each provide marketers with the ability to compile a database full of customers and prospects. This ability to gather consumers into a visible list certainly looks like the familiar paradigm of database marketing. And given the fact these consumers are now part of "our databases," it seems logical that these would meet the criterion for retention marketing. After all, they are in our databases, so the job of acquisition is done, right?

Based on the Subscribers, Fans, and Followers research I have been engaged in over the past several months, looking at the differences in how consumers want to engage with brands through these three channels, I believe this is a potentially serious mistake.

First, consider newly released data on the impact one-to-one communications through these channels have on increased purchase intent.

After becoming an email subscriber, 27% of consumers say they are more likely to purchase from a brand and another 41% are neutral, which I've interpreted as they may or may not be willing to purchase more. Giving the benefit of the doubt, let's say 68% may be influenced to purchase MORE after becoming a subscriber.

After becoming a Facebook Fan, 17% are more likely to purchase, with another 34% on the fence. In total, 51% may be influenced to purchase MORE after becoming a Fan on Facebook.

After following a brand on Twitter, 37% say they are more likely to purchase, with another 31% on the fence. Like email, 68% may be MORE likely to purchase after becoming a follower.

Facebook: It may seem bizarre given the incredible success of Facebook in general that it trails both email and Twitter in terms of its ability to influence increased purchase intent. Add in the recent study by Syncapse, that showed Facebook Fans spend more, are more loyal, more likely to recommend, and have more affinity for the brands they Fan (or "like") than those who don't.

But think about it. Consumers are generally fans in real life before they "like" companies on Facebook. As such, they already purchase from and endorse your brand frequently. Ever had a friend with a Coca-Cola room in his house? Clocks, barstools, soda fountains -- all Coke. It is possible that level of fan could purchase MORE Coke products? Not likely, but they sure spend a lot of time advocating for the brand. Don't they?

Twitter: Consumers who follow brands on Twitter are actually the most likely to purchase more often after following a brand. The challenge for marketers is that this is still a fairly small segment of the online population. Only 5% of online consumers are daily Twitter users that follow brands on Twitter. Do the math, and you'll see only 3% of online consumers are likely to be influenced to purchase more frequently through Twitter.

So, are these retention-marketing channels?

To some degree, of course they are. However, I believe it is more exciting to think of Facebook and Twitter as acquisition channels.

Facebook is all about connecting with friends and being entertained. Those are the primary reasons people go to Facebook in the first place. Moreover, when people "like" brands, they generally do so to tell others about themselves. If I like Nike, that tells you something about my personality. Some call it social badging, others call it a social resume. Either way, it's about them. It's not an open invitation to receive marketing messages.

Even so, they have liked your brand enough (in real life) to consider this an expression of their personality. They have already advocated for you to their friends. Question is, could they endorse you more? Absolutely. In fact, every time they "like" something you post on your Facebook page, they are endorsing you. Each time they comment on one of your posts, they invite their friends to join in and engage with your brand also. Facebook allow marketers to see word-of-mouth happening. It allows marketers to fuel word-of-mouth. And, to me, word-of-mouth is an acquisition strategy, not a retention strategy.

The same goes for Twitter. It's great that this 3% of consumers may purchase more often, but even greater significance should be placed on the ability of this segment to carry your message beyond Twitter through blogs, private forums, and product reviews. In this same study, we discovered that daily Twitter users are an average of five times more likely to write blogs, and three times more likely to post comments and product reviews than other online consumers. They are VOCAL! The trick is to keep this group happy so that they will generate content that influences others to try your products. Again, it's about acquisition.

Email stands alone as the channel that is squarely in the retention marketing camp. Nine-three percent of U.S. online consumers receive at least one permission-based email message per day, making it by far the most broadly used of these channels for consumers looking to engage brands online. As such, it is likely to drive increased purchase intent among the largest number of online consumers. Combined with the high value consumers place on trust and privacy, and their expectations for relevant and exclusive content, email should serve as the cornerstone for brands' retention marketing strategy.

Expansion of your brand's reach online happens when these channels are integrated into a cohesive strategy. Thinking beyond the database and driving consumers to interact across multiple channels offers marketers the opportunity to leverage these channels for both retention and acquisition.

Newspaper Web sites saw a big increase in online video viewing in the second quarter of 2010 -- partly due to interest in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Brightcove and TubeMogul, which analyzed viewership on roughly 2,000 news and entertainment Web sites representing 3.4 billion video streams.

This growth was part of a larger uptick in video viewing across the Web, the companies said.
Video viewing on newspaper Web sites soared 65% in the second quarter. For the Web in general, the total number of people viewing online video increased at an average rate of 2.8% per month in 2Q, while the total number of videos viewed jumped 11% -- suggesting that online video viewing is increasing in both reach and frequency.

Brightcove and TubeMogul also conducted a survey of brand managers concerning their use of online video as a marketing and advertising platform. Sixty percent of those surveyed said they are planning to spend more on online video over the next year, while 70% said they plan to add mobile video to their marketing strategies in this period.

Turning to objectives, 65% said the primary focus of their online video campaigns is awareness, followed by lead generation at 21% and e-commerce at 12%.
The companies also found that referral traffic to online videos originating from Facebook and Twitter is growing faster than traffic from traditional search engines. In fact, if the current growth rate is maintained, Facebook will surpass Yahoo as an originating source of online video referrals.

What's more, referrals from Facebook and Twitter tend to be more engaged with the video content once they arrive than traffic from other sources -- at least when the destination site is a TV or music entertainment Web site.

Monday, 13 September 2010

Four in 10 brand marketers think social creates new challenges to maintaining brand integrity.

Social media has changed much about how consumers communicate with one another, and has given them the ability to broadcast opinions about brands, products and services further than traditional word-of-mouth can reach. It has also meant something that can be scary for brands: Marketers are no longer fully in control of the message.

According to a study from branding agency MiresBall and KRC Research, 40% of brand representatives around the world felt social media posed new challenges to the integrity of their brand. More than a third said that social networking sites affected brands significantly enough to bring about changes in marketing strategy.

But with 500 million consumers reachable on Facebook, and a host of other networking sites, services like Twitter and the rest of the social web, the challenges may be worth it. More than half of brand representatives told MiresBall and KRC that social media gave them an opportunity to reach new customers.

Brand marketers were split on whether social media helped create brand loyalty, however. While 35% agreed, another 30% disagreed, with the remainder neutral on the question.

The research also found a disconnect in how marketers thought about their brands and how they tried to reach out to customers on social media. The vast majority of respondents agreed that the brand must define what a company or product is, and that message should be communicated via various PR and marketing channels, including social media, and that the most effective way to communicate about a brand was to stay true to its message. At the same time, marketers were willing to stray from that strategy—especially in the case of social media.

The report suggested that attempts to find superficial social success might be leading brands to create a presence on networks that did not fit with the brand’s personality or use other inappropriate campaigns in the hopes that one would go viral, even if it did not truly convey the brand’s message.

About Damien Cummings

Damien is a digital disrupter and change agent with over 20 years’ experience in marketing and digital transformation. He is highly awarded, being honoured with “Global Top 50 Digital Marketing Leaders 2016”, “Financial Services Marketer of the Year 2016”, “Digital Marketer of the Year 2016”, "Most Influential CMO 2015" , "Marketing Professional of The Year 2012" and the "Brand Leadership Award 2011".

Damien is currently CEO of Peoplewave a cloud-based HR software company on a mission to make work fair. Before entrepreneurship, he was Global Head of Digital Marketing at Standard Chartered Bank. Prior to this he was Chief Marketing Officer at Philips APAC. Damien has also worked at major global brands such as Samsung, Dell, Ogilvy & Mather, Citibank, Coca-Cola, NRMA and McKinsey & Company.